


The Fall of Her Universe

by watername



Series: The Force and the 'Verse [1]
Category: Firefly, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-02
Updated: 2014-02-02
Packaged: 2018-01-10 21:29:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1164732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watername/pseuds/watername
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>prompt from rachelleneveu: Mal and Inara - a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fall of Her Universe

There’s a call throughout the galaxy, a ringing in the ears of every Force-sensitive, from the drunk shambling in the Tatooine alley, her lack of attention costing her the few winnings she’s scavenged, to the tastefully decorated halls of Inara Serra’s Coruscant apartment.

She nearly spills her tea.

She gathers herself - not a difficult task, as little as herself that has been mislaid - and her skirts, standing up and walking to the window. It is a beautiful view. The Empire is a tyranny, but a polite one to the right person, and Inara, by skill, by beauty, and by deliberate application at the right points, has always been the right person. There’s a tap at her door, and she trails the path of an unfamiliar starship across the sky as the door slides open behind her.

"Don’t tell me you didn’t feel that, ambassador."

Mal Reynolds, smuggler to the distant stars (and the closer ones, on the bad days), stands in her tastefully decorated apartment. Every inch of him is giving off his state, his disciplined disbelief at the universe doing something that has not yet been proven  _wrong_. 

She has yet to understand why a man who rails against every sense of hope, mysticism, faith is a Force-sensitive. She supposes even he ignores it unless it comes in handy. She further supposes this moment, the fall of the Emperor, is such a moment.

"I did. You’d have to a be blind and deaf Toydarian not to, but since someone such as yourself is playing dutiful - unnecessary," she raises one perfect eyebrow, "herald, even they must be reacting now."

He creases his brow and opens his mouth, then closes it without a word. It’s a rare occasion, and Inara takes it for the blessing it is. It gives her one more moment before she must change everything.

Mal looks at her, his expression suddenly, astutely focused, and she has forgotten that while he ignores being Force-sensitive, he doesn’t  _stop_  being Force-sensitive. She blames the circumstances - his dichotomy is the only reason they know each other, and she’s had to plan the last two years of her life around the skill he refuses to acknowledge he’s been cultivating since the fall of the Republic.

_His ship was seemingly held together by nothing less than willpower. Even after adding Kaylee in, it shouldn’t have lasted. She tests him at the beginning, and he parries, and he feels her wanting to the stars at her fingertips, nothing between her and them but bolts and glass._

_He lets her on, and she pushes where she shouldn’t. He pushes back and, while that’s not rare, pushing back the way he does - specifically, targeted for her (not some general anger, disgruntlement at the Empire, at her profession being some affront to universal law) **is**. It’s nothing less than astonishing, and she went to the stars for nothing less than to be surprised._

"Looking for somewhere else to be?" he asks, and she can hear it, nestled behind his words, a suggestion.

She will never hear a condolence for what she is losing. 

She folds her arms behind her back, and reaches out with her mind. She touches arches and buildings to the sky, men and women with power, and men and women suddenly without it. And she knows she is one of them, on a planet without a center to hold it. 

She is a refugee, but there will always be a ship for people like her.


End file.
